President Bush nominated White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales as
attorney general yesterday, choosing his top lawyer and longtime friend
to guide the war on terrorism and lead the federal government's largest
law enforcement agency.

Confirmation by the Senate, considered likely, would make Gonzales,
49, the first Hispanic attorney general in U.S. history and place the Justice
Department in the hands of a loyal Bush confidant who helped craft some
of the administration's most controversial anti-terrorism strategies.

The move also means that departing Attorney General John D. Ashcroft,
a darling of the conservative movement, would be replaced with a figure
viewed with some suspicion by the Republican right. By choosing loyalty
over ideology in the first major personnel decision after his reelection,
Bush signaled a desire for calmer and quieter times at Justice, officials
said.

"He always gives me his frank opinion," Bush said in announcing Gonzales's
nomination. "He is a calm and steady voice in times of crisis. He has an
unwavering principle of respect for the law."

Gonzales said the post of attorney general requires "a special level
of trust and integrity."

"The American people expect and deserve a Department of Justice guided
by the rule of law, and there should be no question regarding the department's
commitment to justice for every American," he said. "On this principle
there can be no compromise."

Democrats and Republicans alike predicted a relatively easy confirmation
for Gonzales, who came to Washington after serving as a Bush aide and as
a state Supreme Court justice in Texas. Last week's elections gave Republicans
a 55-to-44-seat Senate edge in the next Congress, which convenes in January.

Democrats see Gonzales, the son of migrant farm workers, as relatively
moderate. And Republican conservatives -- while uncomfortable with Gonzales
because of previous decisions related to abortion and other social issues
-- were cheered that his appointment as attorney general would keep him,
at least for now, from being nominated to fill a Supreme Court vacancy.

Tom Minnery, vice president for public policy at Colorado-based Focus
on the Family, said Gonzales would be a problematic judicial nominee because
he does not have "strong pro-life beliefs." But he said his group would
support Gonzales's appointment as attorney general.

"Putting someone like that in such an independent role as a federal
judge is a problem for us," Minnery said. "But as attorney general, the
social issues are not as prominent as the law enforcement issues."

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
said it was "encouraging that the president has chosen someone less polarizing."

"We will have to review his record very carefully, but I can tell you
already he's a better candidate than John Ashcroft," Schumer said.

Viet D. Dinh, a former senior Justice official under Ashcroft who now
teaches law at Georgetown University, said he expects Gonzales to "differ
in tone but not in substance" from his predecessor.

"Al Gonzales does not have the strong public profile of John Ashcroft
and the attendant political controversy," Dinh said. "I don't think the
outside interest groups will have as easy a time trying to marginalize
him as a radical or extremist attorney general."

One of the Judiciary Committee's Republican members, Sen. John Cornyn
(Tex.), told reporters that it would be "very difficult" for Democrats
to impede Gonzales's nomination in light of GOP gains in the Senate and
the defeat of Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.). "I just
think this would be the wrong fight for them to pick," Cornyn said.

Nonetheless, some Democrats said Gonzales will face sharp questioning
about his role in crafting administration anti-terrorism policies that
have been overturned or scaled back by the courts. Groups such as the American
Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International urged Democrats to be tough
on him.

Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a
New York-based group that represents families of some detainees at the
military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said that Gonzales's legal opinions
"opened the door and paved the way" for abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in
Iraq.

"He's right in the middle of where this administration went off the
page of the law and into chaos," Ratner said. "They're promoting someone
who was one of the legal architects of the abuse. It's just appalling."

In one January 2002 draft memo, Gonzales argued that the war on terrorism
made the Geneva Conventions' limitations on treatment of enemy prisoners
"obsolete" and "renders quaint some of its provisions."

His office also played a role in an August 2002 memo from the Justice
Department's Office of Legal Counsel advising that torturing alleged al
Qaeda terrorists in captivity abroad "may be justified" and that international
laws against torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations"
conducted in the U.S. war on terrorism. Gonzales held a news briefing to
distance himself from the memo after it became public, calling it, in part,
"irrelevant and unnecessary" and "overbroad."

Gonzales also publicly defended the administration policy of detaining
alleged "enemy combatants" without access to lawyers or courts, a position
rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in June.

Some career prosecutors at the Justice Department were also alarmed
by Bush's choice of Gonzales, said one administration official, given the
department's role in politically sensitive investigations involving the
White House. These include the inquiry into the disclosure of a CIA operative's
name and an escalating investigation of Halliburton Co., the energy services
company formerly run by the vice president.

"This could be the kiss of death to have an attorney general so close
to the White House," the official said.

Many conservatives interpreted the Gonzales appointment as a sign that
Bush is preparing to nominate a more ideological figure to the Supreme
Court.

"I find it reassuring," said Jeffrey Bell, a consultant with ties to
religious conservatives. "It shows that Bush is a loyal person, which on
a different level assures people who care about the Supreme Court."

Among the most likely candidates for Gonzales's current job is White
House staff secretary Brett Kavanaugh, a lawyer who has been waiting nearly
16 months for confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia Circuit, officials said.

Cavanaugh was a top lawyer in two cases that dogged the Clinton White
House, working as a deputy to independent counsel Kenneth Starr in the
long-running Whitewater investigation and the 1998 impeachment case.